I don't like this idea at all, I like spontaneity and flexibility when I'm at a theme park, and to either have to plan the day out in advance or being told to come back at 9pm sounds to me like a huge buzzkill. I guess with Jimmy Fallon the interest will die off pretty fast, but it will surely become a larger problem if they introduce this system onto even more rides?

Zero One wrote:But what I really wanted to mention was the virtual queue experience. I got there around 4pm and used Express Pass to just walk right in but apparently they had run out of virtual queue times around 1pm today. So there was a constant huge crowd of people by the entrance who wanted to ride but couldn't and the team members were continuously yelling at the crowd that "This is for virtual queue and express pass only. There is no standby. Come back at 9pm if you want to try to ride." Some guests would wander away while others kept asking questions about why they were not allowed to wait.

Zero One wrote:But what I really wanted to mention was the virtual queue experience. I got there around 4pm and used Express Pass to just walk right in but apparently they had run out of virtual queue times around 1pm today. So there was a constant huge crowd of people by the entrance who wanted to ride but couldn't and the team members were continuously yelling at the crowd that "This is for virtual queue and express pass only. There is no standby. Come back at 9pm if you want to try to ride." Some guests would wander away while others kept asking questions about why they were not allowed to wait.

I'm not sure I'm ready to put the blame on the queuing system itself just yet, especially considering that the attraction only had its grand opening the other day. I'm assuming that the lounge areas each all have a maximum occupancy, and the virtual queuing means that those numbers will never get higher than they're supposed to. I realize that, yes, why have the lounge areas when you can have switchbacks in a themed space, but every review I've read has said that the lounge areas are much nicer than a traditional queue.

As for the people that aren't allowed to wait? That's a communication issue. If this were, say, Volcano Bay, where every attraction is based on that virtual queue system, maybe that sort of thing wouldn't happen. However, because every OTHER attraction besides Race Through New York has a traditional queuing system, there's this expectation that Race Through New York will as well, which it doesn't. When people get turned down, who's to blame - the guests for not looking ahead of time and reserving their time or looking at the ride info on the map, or the resort for not making sure the guests are informed about the non-traditional queuing system for that one particular ride? We could have a circular argument about that for pages. Is there any signage at entrances to Universal Studios Florida? Is it on the paper maps? Is it in the smartphone app?

EDIT: It is on the interactive map, I was just stupid and couldn't find it.

Zero One wrote:But what I really wanted to mention was the virtual queue experience. I got there around 4pm and used Express Pass to just walk right in but apparently they had run out of virtual queue times around 1pm today. So there was a constant huge crowd of people by the entrance who wanted to ride but couldn't and the team members were continuously yelling at the crowd that "This is for virtual queue and express pass only. There is no standby. Come back at 9pm if you want to try to ride." Some guests would wander away while others kept asking questions about why they were not allowed to wait.

It was quite the cluster.

This is why I absolutely HATE this idea and think it's about as awful as putting metal detectors at coasters. At least with a "standby line" it gives the guest a CHOICE and an option to be able to ride. Even if that option is two hours, that's a better option than saying "Sorry, you're out of luck....come back at park closing and MAYBE we'll let you in." Yeah, that won't fly with me. I would personally refuse to experience any ride with this sort of queuing system as much as I refuse to experience any ride where I have to go through a metal detector in order to walk through the queue.

There are other solutions, and even other solutions within the Universal family. Just see "Flying Dinosaur" to eliminate the metal detectors and see "every other ride that's been built" to eliminate the virtual queue and the lack of choice to be able to ride.

They need to fix this so that ALL GUESTS have an option to ride. There is just no excuse in my mind to ever turn away a guest. None.

If Disney can let people queue up five hours for Frozen, and keep that ride open for five hours after park closing so that EVERY SINGLE GUEST THAT WANTED TO EXPERIENCE THAT ATTRACTION *CAN* EXPERIENCE THAT ATTRACTION, then Universal should not be turning people away from Fallon.

robbalvey wrote:This is why I absolutely HATE this idea and think it's about as awful as putting metal detectors at coasters. At least with a "standby line" it gives the guest a CHOICE and an option to be able to ride. Even if that option is two hours, that's a better option than saying "Sorry, you're out of luck....come back at park closing and MAYBE we'll let you in." Yeah, that won't fly with me. I would personally refuse to experience any ride with this sort of queuing system as much as I refuse to experience any ride where I have to go through a metal detector in order to walk through the queue.

THIS. I'm tired of people being like "Hey, this is great, no more queue lines!" No, not it isn't great. If I fly to Spain in a few weeks and they tell me, "Look, we don't want anyone waiting more than 30 minutes to ride Red Force, so maybe you can ride it later today if the line is shorter?" I would be a very, very, very unhappy camper. I pay money to go to the park to experience attractions. If I have to wait in line, so be it. That's always been part of it. But to not be allowed to wait in line and thus experience attractions AT ALL because it is considered to not be the way some creative type wants me to experience their creation? Holy christ, this isn't fine art. It's a theme park.

I mentioned this in the WDW thread that had ventured off topic to discussing Volcano Bay, but it's worth mentioning here again: People's brains are trained to wait in line. It's all they've ever known when it comes to rides. The psychology of that doesn't just magically change, so people are likely going to keep waiting around until Universal finds a way to build a standby system into this virtual queuing system.

I agree with the sentiment that it is shocking and unacceptable they didn't account for this...

RollerManic wrote:I'm going to hold my overall judgement until this ride has been operating long enough that its popularity settles out, considering it just opened.

However, echoing what A.J. said, I do speculate they can't allow over x number of guests into the lounges due to fire codes. Wether that'll always persist as problem or not we don't know yet.

I wish Universal would have somehow incorporated a standby line into this attraction, but I fear they would have made the lounge queueing experience up-charge if so.

I think it's pretty obvious you haven't even seen or been in the attraction and it's, IMHO pretty stupid that you're making these comments knowing absolutely nothing about the ride or the lounge. Whereas the people who are speaking about their experience are speaking *ACTUAL EXPERIENCES* yet you seem to be discounting that as though there are other factors involved.

It's become a pattern on our forums lately, and I'll just keep saying: If you don't have any clue what you're talking about, we would just prefer you didn't post at all.

Imagine how much of a mess the whole park would be like if Universal keeps pushing the virtual queue line system! Not to mention there are international guests that would have zero clue what is happening and no team member can properly explain to them how things work.

Like Jew, I already went over this topic and my dislike of reservations in the Disney thread when it went into a discussion on Volcano Bay since Korea has had reservation only experiments both in Everland and Lotte World. At least with their reservation only for T Express they allowed people back for last 2-3 hours if you couldn't get a reservation before they cut the line off to shut it down for fireworks. Although I never got to try the old flume ride before it was torn down since, like Fallon's ride, it was reservation until it ran out and it was too out of the way for me to trek halfway across the park to get a ticket when all the rides I wanted to do where the other side of the park.

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